BILLY Lee hailed his Limerick players’ resilience after they came back from the dead to stun Wicklow with a late landslide.
Wicklow looked all set for the Tailteann Cup final when they powered into a seven-point lead in the second half.
But Lee’s men staged a stunning comeback, scoring 1-9 to just 0-1 in reply.
The manager beamed: “They dug really deep when the chips were down, they showed that resilience and character that I’ve spoken about all year.”
Limerick’s final-quarter surge featured 1-3 off the bench and two majestic orange flags from goalkeeper Josh Ryan. Two key moments made all the difference.
A seemingly innocuous shot from Mark McCarthy was initially easily fielded by Mark Jackson in the Wicklow goal.
But Rob Childs followed the instructions of every Under-12 coach in the country as he followed the ball, pressured the keeper, and sure enough he dispossessed Jackson and was left with an empty net.
Lee said: “He must have been the only one that listened (to the pre-match analysis) because we knew Mark was volatile in the tackle, and in fairness to Bob, he listened and he got his reward!”
Then Ryan fired over the first of his doubles, before dropping back into his goal to parry a powerful drive from Kevin Quinn.
The ball flew up into the air, Tony McCarthy pulled Quinn to the ground to prevent him from competing with Ryan for the rebound, and Wicklow had a penalty.
Oisín McGraynor hit the target but Ryan threw his 6ft 5in frame the right way, pushed the ball on to the post, and on the next attack, Barry Coleman split the posts and the sides were level.
Except one team was coming like a train, and the other was all out of energy and ideas.
By the time Wicklow broke their 23-minute scoring drought, Limerick were home and hosed, with Ryan’s 60- metre free from the Hogan Stand sideline crowning a magnificent afternoon.
Wicklow boss Oisín McConville said: “There will be no blame game in there, it’s a collective responsibility.
“I have to look at myself and we all have to look at ourselves as to what happened in the last 20 minutes. I never for one minute thought we were over the line.
“Maybe we were ahead too early because our mentality is to keep going after and chasing the games and that seemed to change today when we went seven points up.”
The first half was tight, with Danny Neville’s goal giving Limerick a 1-7 to 0-9 lead.
A HALF OF TWO QUARTERS
The third quarter was owned by Wicklow, finding the net through Malachy Stone as they went 1-16 to 1-9 clear.
Quinn terrorised the Limerick defence, Patrick O’Keane was the game’s dominant influence at centre-back, and when Dean Healy hit his second two-pointer of the game to make it 1-16 to 1-9, the Garden County were rampant.
Lee said: “All we wanted was to get the ball, calm things down, we knew there was more in them and there was.”
Division 4 winners Limerick now have a third big day in Croke Park to look forward to, this time against a Kildare side that will be the hottest of favourites.
LIMERICK: J Ryan 0-4, 2tpf; J Hassett, M McCarthy, D O’Doherty; P Maher, I Corbett, T McCarthy 0-2; T Childs, D O’Hagan; C Fahy 0-1, D Neville 1-2, K Ryan; J Naughton 0-2, E Rigter 0-1, P Nash 0-3, 2f.
Subs: R Childs 1-0 for Naughton 39 mins; T Ó Siochrú for Corbett 45; B Coleman 0-2 for Rigter 48; D Murray 0-1 for O’Hagan 52; R O’Brien for Maher 60.
WICKLOW: M Jackson 0-2f; D Fee, C Maguire, M Stone 1-0; M Nolan, P O’Keane, T Moran; D Healy 0-5, 2tp, P O’Toole; C Baker, C O’Brien 0-1, J Prendergast 0-2; O McGraynor 0-1, E Darcy 0-2, M Kenny 0-1.
Subs: K Quinn 0-2 for O’Brien 28; JP Nolan for Baker 43; A Maher for Prendergast 60; J Kirwan 0-1 for Kenny 64; C Fee for McGraynor 65.
REFEREE: D Murnane (Cork).
